I'm very excited to announce that Project Darcy is now available on Kindle, here in the
UK, the
US,
Canada,
France,
Germany,
Italy Brazil,
Mexico,
Spain,
Japan, and
India! The official launch is on November 5th and I've a blog tour coming up - so I hope you'll join me for some fun blogs and prizes!
I've been having a lovely time on
Pinterest putting together a mood board for Project Darcy. The book is a timeslip adventure for my heroine, Ellie, and she and her friends are lucky enough to stay in a very special house. I've had a wonderful time imagining what the house would look like inside, and Pinterest, I've discovered, is almost as good as having your own dolls' house!
The house they're staying in is Ashe House where Jane Austen's friend Madame Lefroy lived. It's a beautiful Georgian house and I had the excitement of imagining it in the past, 200 years ago, as well as the present.
I had a lovely time dreaming up bedrooms for the five girls - Ellie, Jess, Martha, Cara and Liberty. Ellie's best friend is Jess, and she, of the five friends, is a Jane Austen fan.
So, I just pictured my idea of a bedroom I thought Jess would like - here's a description -
Jess’s bedroom with chalk pink walls boasted a French bed with buttoned
silk upholstery and a chaise longue in one corner. On the walls was a
collection of silhouettes of people from past times. The profiles of soldiers
and debutantes looked across at one another from ebony frames ranged around the
marble mantelpiece. It looked as if it had been designed with Jess in mind with
its Regency furniture and vast portraits of ladies dressed in white
muslin.
Apart from the Georgian and Regency eras, I love Art Deco and so it was fun to imagine Ellie's bedroom. Ellie is the main heroine of my novel - she is a painter and illustrator and I thought she'd like lots of paintings and visual stimuli:
Ellie’s room was perfection to her way of thinking;
she loved anything vintage. In muted tones of Naples yellow in the patterned
wallpaper and silvery grey satin falling to the floor in a cascade at the
windows, the room was flooded in light. Sunbeams danced through the ancient
embroidered lace like a bridal veil at a summer wedding, parted to give a
stunning view over the beautiful garden. Touches of duck egg blue in the
embroideries on the walls and in the milk glass vases on the mantelshelf were
echoed in a shot of deeper blue silk in the dressing gown dangling from a
padded hanger of cream silk. It looked like a film set left over from the 1930s
and in contrast to Jess’s room, which was a Regency haven, Ellie couldn’t have
wished for
anything more glamorous. A deco dressing table complete with a
mirrored surface and a triptych looking glass was topped with a selection of
exquisite objects – a porcelain tray and boxes for jewels, a Japanese fan, a
silver hairbrush enamelled with blue as vivid as a butterfly’s wing, and a
cloisonné vase filled with old-fashioned roses. The bed draped with grey satin
and ivory lace was flanked either side with paintings typical of the era,
watercolours of primroses or lilac in turquoise bowls, and a still life, of
paper lanterns suspended from branches of white blossom, hung above the
fireplace. She almost couldn’t wait to go to bed when she’d be able to sink
into the pile of satin covered cushions on her bed, pull the quilted eiderdown
up to her throat and admire all the treats before her.
If you haven't tried Pinterest, I highly recommend it - though it is addictive!
